Darrel Ellis: Regeneration

By Ksenia Soboleva

JULY/AUG 2023 | ArtSeen

Darrel Ellis (1958–1992) was engaged in a lifelong love affair with history, from the European nineteenth and twentieth century paintings that he meticulously studied on visits to the MoMA and the Met to the 1950s negatives he inherited from his photographer father. But like any love affair, this one did not come without quarrels. Traveling from the Baltimore Museum of Art, Darrel Ellis: Regeneration at the Bronx Museum is the first major museum exhibition of Ellis’s work. Expanded to triple the size of the previous venue in his birthplace, the Bronx Museum installation presents nearly two hundred works on paper, paintings, photographs, and archival material. It is an impressively comprehensive survey of Ellis’s oeuvre.

Chosen Memories: Contemporary Latin American Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift and Beyond

By Clara Maria Apostolatos

JUNE 2023 | ArtSeen

Although the show’s title, Chosen Memories, may afford its artists greater agency, it also illustrates the challenging terrain of ongoing debates concerning cultural preservation, identity, and the multifaceted narratives that shape our understanding of the region. MoMA’s exhibition reminds us how important it is to actively engage with history, not only as a passive observer but as an agent of transformation, working towards a future that reflects our collective values and aspirations.

Youssef Chebbi’s Ashkal

By Farah Abdessamad

JUNE 2023 | Film

Ashkal won the highest award at the Pan-African Fespaco Film Festival. It premiered at the 2022 Cannes festival Directors’ Fortnight. Screened at MoMA’s New Directors festival last April, it will be distributed in US cinemas this summer.

Georgia O’Keeffe: To See Takes Time

By Rebecca Schiffman

MAY 2023 | ArtSeen

In the eyes of the profound American artist Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), a single artwork can’t always fully express the complexity of its subject: sometimes it takes a few tries. Up now at MoMA is a wonderful expansion of that idea in Georgia O’Keeffe: To See Takes Time, featuring more than 120 works on paper spanning five decades of the pioneering artist's career.